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oldie meme but needed to bring this back due to recent incidents 😭
this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2024
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this shit pisses me off, my instinct is to say irrationally, but i feel it’s probably totally rational to have your own carefully chosen words used in such a hamfisted perversion
yesterday i made a post saying “hey look there’s a pattern to how ableist terms begin as descriptive or medical terms and its only later they are coopted as insults, the most recent of which is ‘neurodivergent’”
top comment? “dude stop telling us to stop using the word ‘neurodivergent.’” 30+ upvotes. and when i respond saying that actually making people abandon the word wasn’t my goal? downvotes.
like what even is the point of writing words if crusty ass debate lords insist on interpretation to mean the exact opposite 80% of the time?
The short answer is that the trend you are describing does not apply to the word neurodivergent because neurodivergent is not a medical term.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/23154-neurodivergent
Your argument was a false equivalency that the r-slur and neurodivergent share the same origin and thus will share the same fate. The implication of such a line reasoning is that since all of these ableist words became known as insults we shouldn't be concerned about the usage of any of them. In other words, legitimizing the r-slur and other ableist language because eventually neurodivergent will be as bad.
People in that thread explained how neurodivergent is fundamentally different. Neurodivergent is a nonmedical word people are choosing to describe themselves as that validates them as a opposed to a medical word that was chosen for them that pathologizes them. Your argument then attempted to dismiss this by saying all of these words have different origins. When in fact they have two, medical and nonmedical.
The euphemism treadmill argument presented by your meme attempts to ignore that distinction to make all the words seem equivalent. When in fact the words used before neurodivergent were always ableist because they were always hurtful even if that wasn't initially recognized as such by neurotypical people using them.
Like trans and cis, neurodivergent and neurotypical acknowledge a difference without being opinionated about which side of that difference is normal or abnormal. These terms are opinionated about which side has privilege and which side does not. These kind of terms receive backlash from the people who find themselves in the privileged cis and neurotypical categories because they realize these labels exposes the power that comes from the privilege of being the default.
Rather than engaging in a good faith discussion about this privilege, those fearful that they will lose this privilege engage in bad faith discussions intended to undermine the mechanism that exposed that privilege. These discussions tend to involve fallacies and usage of words like nuance and objective to obscure what is really happening.
The problem for the people acting in bad faith now is, we've all done this song and dance multiple times now. We know what to look for. We will call it out. We get to keep telling the truth and using words that expose the truth.
two separate discussions.
i fully agree with everyone who is saying what you are saying here (including yourself). thank you! group A, call them. if you read those comments deeply, you will see i have responded with cheerful enthusiasm and accepted their contribution. i thank you for it here too.
other people, we’ll say group B (perhaps a smaller number but i never claimed it was 50/50) falsely just said “you are telling us not to use the word neurodivergent. stop it.”
please, im begging. i don’t want to be an ass and block you but if you come into a separate thread of mine to give your reading on dozens and dozens of comments, read all of them? :(
Your argument disregarded the arguments that refuted your central point, group A, in a very cheerful manner and instead hyperfocused on arguments that were easier to disparage, group B.
My arguments focused on group A because that it is what should have been the end to a good faith discussion. Your insistence on going after group B, a more defensible position, is an attempt to continue this discussion under a veneer of good faith.
Multiple arguments have established your argument's position to be false. If you want to continue to have these discussions in good faith I highly recommend you engage with the implications of your argument and its position being incorrect.
I read the other post and did not engage because I saw it had reached the limits of a good faith discussion. I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt. Now I see a new post that attempts to continue that discussion without addressing the lessons learned or misconceptions exposed.
You're not begging you're threatening. I will not comply in advance. I will tell the truth and expose the truth. And, thankfully I am not the only person who will do so.
Ah! There’s your misconception. I was not making an argument. I was comparing a series of similar events and noting how forces exist that may try to continue that pattern. Now, I think it’s fair to misconceive that once, upon first reading the post. But you read all the comments right? So you will see all the times where I say “this is descriptive, not perscriptive” or: “I am showing the forces at play so people are aware of them.” Call it “expressing a concern,” perhaps. Not telling people what to do or “making an argument.”
Hope this makes sense ❤️
Again, it’s super fair to misconceive it once, but fortunately I exist and have the capacity to clarify! So after this, you won’t have to worry about misunderstanding. Right? Because if not you are literally the “so you hate waffles” guy in the post and that’s super embarrassing for you. XD
It’s not even the end, fortunately! :D I am actively having these conversations still, and they are all in good faith. I’m actually having a lot of fun with the Group A whom you falsely claim I am disregarding. You conveniently ignore this in order to get some seratonin from writing me paragraphs about “exposing truth”??!!, and that’s super sad. 😔 You could be having fun interesting discussions along the same lines if you hadn’t made it weird. Sorry, man.
Your argument in the previous post was establishing a false equivalence. An attempt to show a pattern between two dissimilar things. That was the bailey.
With this post you have retreated to the motte, hyperfocusing on another group of arguments to distract from the arguments that refuted your central point.
By obfuscating your position, by pretending you were misunderstood, you were hoping to be unchallenged in a hypothetically more defensible position so you could claim victory.
As my argument has exposed this deception your argument is now relying on ad hominen attacks. Your playbook lacks the means to interact meaningfully with an argument that engages and refutes both your argument's desired bailey, attacking the word neurotypical because it exposes privilege, and what turned out to be a not so defensible motte, misleading accusations of assumptions and new usages of the word nuance.
Group B identified your argument's desire to undermine the validation people feel from using the word neurodivergent. Your argument's goal was to get people to stop using the word neurodivergent. Your argument's motivation for this is to undermine a mechanism that exposes the privilege that neurotypical people enjoy,
Your declaration of victory has defeated you.
LMAO
have a good one mate